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I'd just finished a contract for a big NGO and was at a loose end in Sweden. Free time and some savings put me on the road – I figured I’d try to retrace the old caravan silk road that connected Europe and Asia before the age of container ships and jumbo jets. I’d end up in the Himalayas and find… what? See when I got there.

It was a dank grey September morning when, suddenly finding myself with nothing much left to lose and utterly bored of being me, I unglued my face from the floor beside my bed and sought guidance from the I Ching, to be thus advised: 'It furthers one to cross the Great Water'.

Retiring from work after 33 years came as a wonderful relief. I was now free to tour with friends I’d made while living in Southern California in the early 1980s. Tom Bannon was a successful amateur ex flat track racer who, even at close to 75 years of age, is a rider of some ability. His friend Dwayne Holman would join our tour and, as luck would have it, had a lovely Suzuki SV650 I could borrow.